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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23725276">This is where it starts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva'>flipflop_diva</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Best Friends, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Natasha Romanov Feels, POV Natasha Romanov, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Steve Rogers, Red Room (Marvel), Sick Character, Sickfic, Team as Family</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:54:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,519</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23725276</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha gets the flu, and then learns a thing or two about friendship.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers &amp; Natasha Romanov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Gen Freeform Exchange2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>This is where it starts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherylmarjorieblossom/gifts">antoinettetopaz (cherylmarjorieblossom)</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Steve was acting weird. </p><p>It had started the night before, from what Natasha could tell. He had seemed fine all that afternoon. They’d sparred together. He’d taken her down more times than she’d taken him down, but not by much. She’d teased him about being old and not up to full strength, and he’d rolled his eyes at her and told her to watch it.</p><p>They’d eaten lunch together after that and curled up on the couch in the common room of the Tower to watch movies. Everyone was else was off somewhere or other — Tony and Bruce buried in some secret project down in the lab, Thor back on Asgard, Clint gone for the weekend (back to Laura and the kids, Natasha knew, though the others had no idea) — so it was just her and Steve. Which wasn’t new. It was just her and Steve a lot, and she was okay with that. Steve was a good guy, and he was good to her. And she liked being around him.</p><p>But somewhere during the second movie, she had fallen asleep. She normally didn’t like to sleep in front of anyone, but the couch, and Steve, were so warm and she was so comfy and she was so, so tired, and it had happened. But when she’d awakened, it was like Steve had been replaced with someone she didn’t recognize.</p><p>Instead of cooking dinner together like the usually did, he insisted she didn’t leave the couch. Then not only did he insist on going with her back to her floor — which was ridiculous since it was an elevator ride up a few floors — he even literally walked her to her bed, which she found more than a little annoying and only didn’t say so because she was still so tired, she could barely keep her eyes open. </p><p>And now, the next day, he still seemed to be everywhere, not letting her do anything on her own, and she wasn’t sure what to think. He always seemed to like that she was strong and independent, but now he wanted to do everything for her, and she was growing frustrated.</p><p>He looked at her now. They were sitting on her couch, because Steve suddenly seemed to think the common room was too far away, and she was too tired to argue with him when he suggested staying where they were.</p><p>“Do you feel up to eating anything?” he asked her.</p><p>Natasha blinked at him, trying to figure out if she should say something or not, but before she could even finish running through the pros and cons in her mind, words were exploding out of her, as though they just couldn’t be contained anymore. “What are you doing?”</p><p>Now it was Steve who blinked at her in confusion. “Seeing if you want food?” he said, a little too carefully.</p><p>She shook her head, but quickly stopped. When had she gotten a headache? “No,” she managed. “Why are you …” She searched for the word. Her brain felt fuzzy. She would wonder if Steve was drugging her, but she knew he would never do that. Maybe it wasn’t the real Steve? But no, he was looking at her like the real Steve always looked at her.</p><p>“Why am I what?” Steve said, breaking into her thoughts, and she started, realizing she hadn’t finished her sentence. What was wrong with her?</p><p>“Hovering,” she finally said. “Why are you hovering?”</p><p>She thought she saw a small smile start to form on Steve’s face, but she wasn’t sure. “This is what friends do, Natasha, when other friends are sick.”</p><p>“I’m not sick.” Sure, she had a cough. And a little sneezing. But it was just a cold.</p><p>“Nat,” Steve said, in that voice he used when he definitely did not agree with her.</p><p>“Fine. It’s just a cold.”</p><p>Steve shook his head. “You have a hundred and three degree fever. It’s not a cold.”</p><p>She frowned. “I do? How do you know that?” Images of Steve shoving a thermometer into her mouth while she was asleep flashed through her mind. He wouldn’t, right?</p><p>“Because you let me let JARVIS scan you this morning. Remember?”</p><p>She thought. That did seem vaguely familiar.</p><p>“Hey.” Steve reached out and put a hand on her knee. It felt hot against her warm skin under her pajamas. “I just want to help you, okay?”</p><p>Help her. Steve always wanted to help her. She still wasn’t used to that. But she was too tired to argue with him. It was easier to nod, so she did, her eyes feeling heavy. Maybe if she just closed them for a few minutes …</p><p>She sank back into the pillow, and had a brief image of Steve tucking blankets around her before she drifted off.</p><p>-</p><p>“Where did you learn to do all this?” she asked Steve later that night. They had moved to Natasha’s bed, and she was curled up against him, her head leaning against his chest as his arm was wrapped around her. She gestured to the tray of mostly eaten food that was still lying on the folding table beside the bed where they had left it.</p><p>She was feeling a little better. JARVIS had said her fever was down, and her head felt less like she was in a cloud. She was even able to eat half the soup Steve had made for her — from scratch, because he said it would help more than canned.</p><p>Steve looked to where she was pointing. “Cook?” he asked.</p><p>“No,” she said. “You know what I mean.”</p><p>“Ahhhh.” He squeezed her arm slightly. “It sounds weird but when I was younger, some of my best moments with my mom was when I was sick, and she would take care of me. I was sick a lot, but she always knew exactly what to do to make me feel better.”</p><p>“Hmmm.” Natasha thought about that, and what it must have been like. “We didn’t get sick days when I was little.”</p><p>Steve didn’t say anything. He never did when she brought up the Red Room. He always just let her talk. </p><p>She kept going. “Training was always the most important thing. If you let anything get in the way of it, you were too weak and there were consequences.”</p><p>She didn’t say any more. Steve didn’t need to know the details. She felt him hold her even tighter, if that were possible.</p><p>“You know that’s not how things are supposed to be, don’t you?” he said softly. His lips were just above her ear. Part of her wanted to twist around to see his face, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to see how he was looking at her.</p><p>“Yes,” she answered instead, keeping her eyes focused forward. Then, “No. I don’t know. I know that logically, but …”</p><p>“But no one’s ever taken care of you when you’ve been sick.”</p><p>“I don’t get sick,” she said.</p><p>She heard him chuckle, a low noise in his chest. “You right now would seem to prove otherwise.”</p><p>“It must have been you,” she said. “You and your super-soldier serum. I never got sick before I met you.”</p><p>Steve laughed. “That must be it.” A moment later, though, the laughter was gone. “You deserve to have people in your life who will take care of you when you’re sick. Who will help you when you need it, even if you don’t want it. You know that right?”</p><p>Natasha didn’t answer. She wouldn’t have known what to say even if she had wanted to say something.</p><p>-</p><p>Steve didn’t leave her side for four days, even after the fever went away and she stopped needing to sleep for hours upon hours.</p><p>“You don’t need to stay with me,” she told him on the fourth morning. He had once again made her breakfast, but this time they ate it together at her small table before moving to the couch. </p><p>“I know I don’t need to,” he said. He ran his fingers through her hair. She had her head on his lap, her feet over the arms of the couch. It felt nice, having him touch her, having him hold her. She had a feeling she was going to miss this when he finally did leave. “I want to.”</p><p>“Don’t you have other things you need to be doing?”</p><p>“They can wait.”</p><p>“Steve …”</p><p>“Nat. They can wait.”</p><p>She rolled over just enough so she could look up at him. His big blue eyes met hers, a twinkle in them.</p><p>“Do you do this for all your friends?” she asked. “Or am I just lucky?”</p><p>“I’d do this for all my friends I consider family.”</p><p>Natasha felt like she couldn’t breathe. She stared up at Steve. “What?” she finally said.</p><p>“Don’t be so surprised.”</p><p>“I barely know what a friend is.”</p><p>“And that’s okay. You know I’ve never asked you for more than you can give.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Natasha said. Her voice was barely a whisper. </p><p>“But to answer your question, you also are just lucky.”</p><p>A laugh bubbled out of her. “Yeah,” Natasha said. “I am.”</p>
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